Originally Posted by thebigeasy59
Did you guys know that Kluber wasn't drafted by the Indians? Because I didn't. He was actually drafted in the 4th round of the 2007 draft by San Diego, and traded in a 3-way deal at the deadline of 2010. The Padres got Ryan Ludwick, the Cardinals got Jake Westbrook and Nick Greenwood, and the Indians got Corey Kluber.
Greenwood had put up some pretty decent numbers in the minors before stalling at AAA. He appears to have last seen big league action in 2015, when he allowed 2 runs and didn't record an out, leaving with an ERA of "inf" according to B-ref. He was released after 2015. He didn't matter much anyway.
2010 Cleveland was bad, and 2010 St Louis was good, and that San Diego was good too. The Indians were like 17 games under .500 at the deadline, and wanted to shed some salary in exchange for prospects. Jake Westbrook had an $11MM salary that year and was a free agent to be. The Cardinals, meanwhile, were 12 games over .500, in the thick of a playoff race, only had one year left of Albert Pujols, and had recently lost Kyle Lohse and Brad Penny to injury, so they needed a starter. The Padres liked Ludwick, and for good reason, as he had slashed .280/.349/.507 for the Cards in recent years.
Westbrook would go to STL, and pitch pretty reasonably down the stretch, putting up a 3.48 ERA in 8 starts, providing about a WAR over 75 innings. He'd stay for 3 more seasons, getting notably worse, and finishing his career in STL after 2013, totalling the Cardinals just 1.3WAR over nearly 550 innings and costing over $25MM Greenwood appeared in 20 games total, and gave -0.2WAR.
Ludwick (who had signed in STL as a free agent 3 years earlier) stunk it up down the stretch of the 2010 season, batting .228/.301/.358 over exactly 1 year as a Padre (-0.9 WAR), getting traded for money (i.e. purchased) by the Pirates on deadline day in 2011.
Kluber, the guy Cleveland took back just to take someone back, had some decent numbers in the minors, and looked like, if everything broke right, he could be one of those guys in the back of a rotation who could eat some innings if he could ever harness his pitches and walk fewer guys. Of course, we all know now that he instead, developed a cutter and two-seamer and stopped walking anybody and became amazing, putting up a 3.30 fip in 2013, and has been the best pitcher in the AL since, racking up 27 WAR in the process. Needless to say, turning Westbrook in to Kluber is a ****ing miracle for Cleveland. The path travelled to get Westbrook in the first place is where this gets a bit dicey.
Regardless, Westbrook was acquired by Cleveland from NYY with Ricky Ledee and Zach Day for David Justice (!). As mentioned in Moneyball, the Yankees paid pretty much all of Justice's remaining contract-- what I didn't know at the time was that the Yankees traded him to the Mets for Robin Ventura, and it was the Mets who sent him to Oakland. Anyway, Justice was acquired by Cleveland along with Marquis Grissom (!) from Atlanta for Alan Embree and Kenny Lofton (!!!!).
Embree was, rather boringly at this rate, drafted by Cleveland in 1989 (!!!!!). Lofton, however, was acquired back in 1991 (!!!) for Willie Blair and Ed Taubensee. Taubensee was picked up off waivers, while Blair was acquired from Toronto in 1990 for Alex Sanchez... here's the kicker: Sanchez was drafted by Toronto, but was then traded to Cleveland for Bud Black! Black signed as a free agent with Cleveland in 1988!!!!!!
Holy **** I love doing this. Corey Kluber's acquisition tree goes back to when I was in ****ing diapers.